There has to be a better way to drown our sorrows
|
Version 0 of 1. If the 1980 Scottish Cup final between Celtic and Rangers had not ended in violence amid bottles and a policewoman on a white horse, life would have been much more difficult for a generation of television documentary-makers and political pamphleteers. The match between two of the world’s most bitter sporting rivals possessed all the themes so beloved of Scotland’s liberal and supercilious intelligentsia: young, white male-on-male violence; an industrial quantum of bevvy; wretched religious tribalism. As a game of football it was nothing special, but it hasn’t half kept the ponytail and red corduroy brigade in gainful employment ever since, inveighing against booze, religion and violence in their pods, workshops and weekend seminars. Still, at least it keeps many of them off the streets at weekends. Very few of them, though, care a jot about the generations of political indifference and economic deprivation that reached its inevitable apotheosis that sunny day at Hampden Park in May 1980. Alcohol abuse was deemed to be the main cause of the post-match violence so the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 was introduced making it an offence to be drunk or to possess alcohol on football coaches, on entry to grounds and in most areas of grounds. That two of these legal restrictions are cheerfully ignored on any given match-day is never acknowledged by politicians and the forces of law and order. The police can produce statistics that, no matter how much you slice and dice them, seem to show that behaviour at football matches and in those locales where they occur has improved significantly. Police numbers for any aspect of their work is never subject to independent analysis, so I suppose we must accept these in good faith because they never tell lies. In the 35 years that have passed since then there has been little opposition to the banning of alcohol at football matches. It’s widely accepted that Scotland has a ruinous relationship with booze and that young, white males from traditionally working-class neighbourhoods are particularly susceptible to its baleful effects. Indeed the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act was the father of a whole family of measures that have been handed down by local and central government in Scotland to curb bad behaviour caused by alcohol abuse. Pub Happy hours are banned, as is drinking in public. There is a minimum price level for alcohol and the drink-driving limit has been cut. In 2006, a Glasgow city council bylaw was introduced banning glassware from all venues holding an entertainment licence within the city centre. All of this is very worthy and characteristic of a modern state seeking to exorcise an old devil which it deems to be responsible for many of our social ills. It’s also, though, a depressingly simplistic and shallow approach that permits civic Scotland to salve its conscience about the far deeper and more complex set of dynamics underpinning chronic alcohol abuse in this country. I feel safe in guaranteeing that a postcode analysis of alcohol-related violence occurring in and around big football matches in Glasgow will reveal what many of us already instinctively believe to be the case: that the miscreants in almost every case will reside in the 10 poorest districts of the city. Long-term unemployment, child poverty, paltry wages, ill health and low self-esteem mean that solace, for a few glorious hours or so can be found in the oblivion of a relatively cheap mistress. The rest of us who, by happy accident of birth, are spared this everyday apocalypse choose merely to wag our fingers and tell them to please stop. Instead, we should be weeping for them and hiding our faces in shame that we are largely indifferent to the causes of such widespread social dislocation in one of the 10 most affluent countries in the world. Much easier to blame the drink, isn’t it? So I have some sympathy for Jim Murphy’s view that it is time to permit alcohol to be sold at football grounds. The leader of the Labour party in Scotland has said: “In a country where rugby fans can rightly drink and corporate hospitality football fans can rightly drink, today’s generation of football supporters are paying for the sins and the crimes of Scottish football fans from 1980. We should stop criminalising football fans and stop treating them as uniquely incapable of drinking in moderation and enjoying a sporting occasion.” Murphy believes there is a degree of class prejudice here, and there was a time when I would have agreed with him. But I have altered my opinion on this. The relationship between rugby supporters and their clubs and national team is simply not imbued with anything approaching the fervour and commitment that characterise the bond between a football fan and his team. Rugby encounters are dates on a social calendar that also include dinner parties; sleepovers at Annabel’s and trips to London to catch Lez festering Miz. They mix cheerfully with opposition fans because, let’s face it, they don’t really give a damn about the outcome of the match: there are other, bigger, things going on in their lives. Not so with many football fans. They invest a disproportionate degree of emotional intensity in their clubs because football alone fills the large hole where stability, contentment and self-worth should also reside. When you introduce drink into this already volatile relationship the result can be unpredictable. I’m not convinced that the reintroduction of alcohol at football grounds really resonates with as many people as Murphy thinks it does. God knows I enjoy a quality gargle as much as the next chiel, but I’ve always found these to be more satisfying in the company of friend and foe alike after the fog of on-field hostilities has cleared. There is a hint of desperation about Murphy’s championing of booze at football as he casts about for solid ground on which to pitch Labour’s recovery in the polls. I’d rather he concentrated all his efforts in addressing the real problems that lead young, working-class men to drink aggressively and act violently. |